


Mandolin

by Apetslife



Category: Popslash
Genre: Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:59:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apetslife/pseuds/Apetslife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JC buys a mandolin in Chicago, and it is NOT a tiny guitar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mandolin

When JC staggered onto the bus in Chicago, windblown and pink and bright-eyed, with a small black case cradled in his arms, Justin smiled, Lance groaned, Chris closed his eyes and sighed, and Joey turned over and kept snoring. Another one to add to the collection of random instruments piled under JC's bunk, Chris thought. What had JC really thought he was going to do with *three* recorders?

He was shining with excitement, though, and the air around him seemed to pick it up, sending a ripple through the placidity and exhausted calm on the bus. Lance actually sat up. Chris was impressed. He himself felt entirely bonded to his chair.

"What'cha get, C?" Justin. Chris snorted. Kid thought he was quite the instrumentalist these days. Teaching Britney guitar, indeed. Chris had heard his attempts, and he knew better.

"OH! I was shopping, you know, down in the Circle, and-"

"Loop, JC. It's the Loop." Lance had turned back to his file folder, but even when he wasn't really paying attention, he hated imprecision.

JC ignored Lance. "-and I found this little music store, you know, the kind with four guitars in the window and like a thousand ads for people looking for bands on the door? And it smells like wood and dust and stuff inside? And the guy inside was really old, and really mean, and he was stringing a bass or something, and he didn't even look up when I came in!" JC floated over to sit on the arm of the couch by Joey's head. Chris watched passively. "And I got to play with all the instruments, and he didn't even know who I was, and he told me I should really take lessons because I suck." He was beaming. Justin shot him a sharp look.

"JC, you're happy because someone told you you suck?" Justin couldn't even wrap his mind around that, Chris knew.

"No, I'm happy because he sold me something anyway." He looked down proudly at the little black case.

"Oooh, lemmee see." Justin scrambled up from the floor, magazine forgotten. JC carefully unsnapped the little silver clasps on the small case, and lifted the top.

"Hey! You got a tiny guitar!" Justin reached in for it, and had his hand slapped away. Looked wounded.

"It's not a tiny guitar. It's a MANDOLIN."

"What the hell is a mandolin, C? And how come it's got all those strings? And why is it so small. Here, let me..." Justin reached in, and got shoved away again, and tussled briefly with JC, and they were both grinning. Joey got a couple of elbows in the head, and finally woke up enough to grab Justin around the waist and haul him over the arm of the couch to settle beside him.

JC had the instrument out now, and was bent over it happily, slender fingers touching up and down the neck, humming a little as he smiled at it. Chris rolled his eyes before letting them fall closed. They wouldn't be seeing much of C until his fling with his new toy had run its course.

He let his mind drift, a little. Wondered if Joey and Lance would be staying on their bus again. Lately, with all the shit going on...his own threatened nervous breakdown, Joey's pneumonia, Lance's terrified nerves about the movie, they'd been spending a lot more time together. Kind of all moved back in together, like the old days. In the distant way he felt everything, recently, he was glad. It was nice, having them all around all the time. Like family.

He checked his watch, and smiled. Time for another pill.

***

They hadn't really believed how much pain he was in, after breaking his hand. Didn't understand that he'd really shattered some of the little bones in there, and it was a throbbing agony, every heartbeat making him gasp and swear. Even after it was set, the ache and pull drove him almost out of his mind, until he was hissing curses at anyone who touched him, snarling in interviews, unable to think of anything but the pain that blanketed his mind. They'd given him advil. ADVIL. He remembered screaming at Johnny one night and throwing the little prescription bottle at his head, after a show. He'd have chewed his own arm off, if he'd known how.

They'd taken him back to the hospital after that, and it turned out he'd dislodged a few of the mending fractures, and the nurse had sighed and clucked sympathetically as they'd reset it, and told him not to use it so much. That was an impossibility, he'd wanted to sneer. The Show Must Fucking Go On.

But the little white pills they'd given him had been a godsend. They were a lot better than the Codeine he remembered getting for his wisdom teeth. Not only had they taken the pain in his hand away, made it a distant and forgettable thing, but even the OTHER pain, the one his mind had worried at in frantic agonizing circles, had faded to something bland and unimportant. He could smile at her now, when they met for business. Congratulate her sincerely on her new fiancee. Shake that fiancee's hand. It was amazing, really.

***

JC was tuning the mandolin. Which would have been nice to watch, and hear, if JC had really had any idea of how it was supposed to be tuned. He was just fiddling with the pegs, frowning slightly, head cocked to hear variations in tone.

"Trouble, C?" Chris was sitting crosslegged on the floor, playing solitaire.

"I just...I don't know if they're supposed to be the same note, or complimentary. And I think it's supposed to start on G, but really. I don't know. It could be C. Aren't...I mean. Guitars are strung to E. How do I know?" Even in the midst of his frustration, JC's voice was calm and light. Chris wondered how he did that.

"It's got, what, eight strings?"

"Yeah. But they're doubled. You know. I think maybe they're supposed to be the same note." JC stopped plucking at the strings, and looked at Chris. "Do you maybe have any mandolin music?"

Chris shrugged, looking back at his cards. "Probably. Back at home."

JC sighed, and set the little instrument aside, and sat still, watching Chris play. Spoke abruptly.

"I didn't even know you knew how to play solitaire."

Chris shrugged again. "Never had the patience for it, I guess."

JC just looked at him.

***

JC had taken the brunt of it, after Dani. Joey and Justin, who knew Chris well, had kept a sympathetic but wary distance. Lance had never been good with the emotional stuff anyway, though he'd tried, hard, for Chris's sake. But JC, stubborn or stupid or just too sweet to know better, had kept coming back. Even after Chris had thrown a mug of tea at his head, and shouted at him to leave him the FUCK ALONE, already. He'd just cleaned up the shards, and offered another hug. He hadn't understood that he was just making it WORSE. With his gentleness and his caring and his pretty eyes and his smile...Chris wanted to break it, and he didn't know why. But JC kept coming back.

Chris had had some meetings with management about his attitude in interviews, and he knew the guys were under orders not to let him talk too much in public. He'd hated the bitter, resentful feeling in his chest, but it was like a burn he couldn't get rid of. He spoke because it kept him from thinking. He screamed and ran around and bounced and twitched because if he wasn't moving he might just punch something. Maybe JC. Maybe just the wall, but he didn't want to find out.

Two days after he'd gotten the prescription, he'd apologized to them all. Justin and Joey had hugged him and swept him up and carried him off to play video games, Lance had smiled his shy smile. JC had nodded and looked vaguely concerned. He didn't know what else he was expecting.

***

Chris asked a roadie, who looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but knew the answer. Chris had learned long ago that roadies knew everything. It was something he reminded Justin of fairly often, in his eternal battle to keep the brat's feet on Planet Earth.

JC was almost asleep in front of the television in the hotel room when Chris let himself in. Chris smiled a little at the picture. They were crazy rock stars all right. Here it was a Friday night, and Joey was asleep on the couch, Lance sprawled all over him looking very young as he dozed with Joey's hand in his hair. Justin was doing a crossword puzzle in the corner, chewing on the end of a pencil with great concentration. And JC, curled in a ball on the bed, hands tucked under his chin, eyes half-shut as he watched Letterman.

"JC." He didn't bounce him awake, just kind of sat on the edge of the bed. He didn't bounce much any more.

JC shifted and sighed.

"JC, you got your mandolin with you?" He spoke a little louder, and sleepy blue eyes opened wide. He noticed idly that C had the longest eyelashes...

"Yeah...hmmm? Chris?"

"Dude. It's tuned just like a violin! I found out for you." He smiled at JC, whose sudden grin lit up the whole room.

As they were sitting side by side tuning the thing, it struck Chris that it was awfully close to being tuned right already. But JC would surely have told him if he'd figured it out already...

***

Deep down, he'd been able to tell that he was still angry about a lot of stuff. Every once in a while he'd get a tickle of it, when some teenager asked another intrusive, inane question in soundcheck, when Justin did a photoshoot alone, despite his old promises that they'd do everything together always. When he got an invitation to Dani's wedding. But the forefront of his brain, the part that did the talking and the singing and answered the questions, was pretty brilliantly happy most of the time. Calm and happy. It wasn't a feeling he was used to, and every once in a while, he'd get a flash of WRONGness about it. But that always collapsed in the face of the terror that it wouldn't last, that he'd go back to being the miserable bastard that had almost left the group, that had almost put his fist through a wall, that had almost said a number of unspeakable things in interviews. That had been cruel to JC, possibly the person least deserving of cruelty to ever live.

Three weeks into the New Chris, Justin had come out into the dim light of the nighttime lounge yawning and scratching his stomach, to find Chris reading a book. He'd looked incredulous, and plopped down beside him, curling around him with that blithe disregard for personal space that they'd all developed.

"Whatcha reading?" Justin's voice had been husky with sleep, his head heavy and somehow young as it rested against Chris's thigh. As limp and trusting as a baby.

"One of C's books. The Hobbit. It's good."

"I know it's good. I read that in, like, the fifth grade." He yawned again, curled closer. "You never read it?"

"Nope. C says I gotta before the movies come out, you know? He's all excited about them." He smiled at the memory of JC's enthusiasm.

"Yeah." Silence, and Chris kept reading.

"It's just too fucked up, you reading." Justin sounded more awake. "Who are you and what have you done with my friend Chris?"

Chris had laughed, and hadn't answered, and had petted Justin until he fell asleep again. How could he explain that his mind felt strange and awake and a little desperate for things to keep it busy, while the enforced calm of his body was making him feel like an alien? And that he was pretty constantly high, now? At least it wasn't something that left trackmarks or bloodshot eyes or smoke smell. And something that let him finally sit still long enough to read a fucking book. Small favors.

Chris had thought about throwing out his prescription, and his stomach had trembled.

***

JC was playing the mandolin all the time on the bus, now, and seemed to have interpreted Chris's little sleuthing errand as an expression of interest, because he was always asking Chris what he thought. Chris didn't mind; he liked watching. JC sat bent around the arch of the wooden belly, as if he could somehow leak music from himself into the little mandolin and make it sing. His fingers were hesitant on the strings, plucking here and there, gently, coaxing the smoky, tinny, old-fashioned sound from the strings. For some reason it always made Chris think of mountains, hearing JC play.

He'd picked up an old violin instruction book from somewhere, and had figured out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Yankee Doodle" and a couple of old lullabyes. Chris sat still and quiet, watching JC wince as he hit a sour note, smile as he made it all the way through a song. He found himself smiling, too. How could you not, when JC was shining like a star?

***

Joey had cornered him one night, after they'd gone out clubbing and Chris had had Pepsi, and only Pepsi. He wasn't really sure what alcohol would do with his pills, but he'd seen "Behind the Music" and he had no desire to find out.

He'd been stripping out of his silk shirt, had turned around, and Joey'd just been THERE. He'd jumped a foot.

"FUCK, Joey, don't do that!" His pulse was racing. Joey was so clumsy usually, sometimes they all forgot that he could move like a cat when he chose to.

Joey had smiled at him, wide and disingenuous, at complete odds with his shrewd eyes.

"Just checkin' in, Kirkpatrick. Wanted to find out if everything's cool, you know." He'd settled into a chair and looked comfortably immovable. Chris had scowled at him.

"I'm fine, dude. What the fuck?" He searched his mind for anything he'd done or said out of the ordinary.

"Just, y'know." Joey had waved a hand in the air. "Stuff. You've been off lately. All toned down. An' you wouldn't even do shots with Lance tonight! What was up with that?"

"I'm on these painkillers, you know that." He'd thrown his shirt into the laundry pile, annoyed. "Can't drink."

"About that." Joey had looked directly at him, clear eyed. "You've been on those for a while now. When's that prescription running out?"

"Joe, for God's- I'm not taking more than it says on the bottle, DAD, so fuck off. My hand still HURTS, Joey." He'd felt one of those little tickles of genuine anger, and glared at Joey, hands on his hips.

"A month ago, you'd have been taking a swing at me for asking this shit. Wanna explain THAT?"

Fucking Joey and his fucking CALM.

"No, I don't. I'm mellowing. I'm old. I've passed my prime. Now get out. Go mind Lance, make sure he doesn't die in a puddle of puke or something. You wanna worry about someone, Joey, try him. That kid's drinking way too much."

Joey had nodded, looked worried, and left after giving him a peacemaking hug. He watched Chris more often, though, and it was annoying.

***

Chris found the David Grisman CD in a music store in Dayton, and snatched it up with a chuckle. Slid it under the pillow in JC's bunk, and waited. He actually felt impatient as JC wandered around the bus, making tea, flipping through the paper, tapping out a random rythm that he probably picked up from the bus wheels on the wall, nodding along to the music in his head. Chris bounced through the tiny kitchen, glared at JC, then ran back out to the living room. Of all the times for JC to decide he didn't need his afternoon nap!

He sat on the couch, fiddled with a video game controller, swore at his cast, stood up and fidgeted, sat down again. He remembered that he was at least three hours past the time he should have taken another pill, but he didn't want to be spacey when JC found his surprise, so he didn't go to his bag.

Justin was watching him, open-mouthed.

"What?" He snapped.

Justin's level brows drew down. "Freak, don't you yell at me!"

"Freak? Freak?" Acting on an impulse he hadn't had in forever, he leapt straight at Justin, tackling him to the floor, fingers going unerringly for tender spots along the ribs. Justin shrieked and twisted and fought him, rolling them over and over till they hit the couch with a thump. Chris didn't let up an inch, breathless and laughing, and tears were streaming down Justin's face as he howled and banged his head back into the carpet.

"NOnonononono, Chriiis, mercymercy, ChrisIgiveup, Chris PLEASE!" And Chris sat up on his stomach, triumphant.

"I AM THE KING! ALL BOW BEFORE THE GREAT KIRKPATRICK!" Justin was still limp with laughter, and Chris bounced on him twice, driving the breath out of him with an 'oof.' Then hands were grabbing him under his arms, hauling him off Justin to his feet, wrapping around him from behind. JC hung a sharp chin over his shoulder and looked down at Justin. His hair tickled Chris's cheek. Justin was still gasping.

"Did you kill him?"

There was something wrong with Chris's voice, suddenly, and he wondered if it was because JC smelled like soap and sunshine.

"I think he's still alive," he squeaked out, and cleared his throat.

"Oh, good," JC murmured. "I'd hate to go hunting for another tenor, after all this time."

Chris grinned, and leaned back, suddenly comfortable. JC's hands were linked over his belly, and he had lots of warm JC all against his back, and he couldn't really think of a better place to be. And then JC moved.

There were lips against his neck, in the soft spot right under his ear. Warm and dry, though the air that brushed his skin when JC spoke was hot.

"Wanna come play my mandolin with me, Chris?"

He nodded, speechless.

"We can play along with my new CD." JC pulled away, and smiled at him through tangled long bangs, and that wasn't helping Chris remember how to breathe, not at all.

They left Justin on the floor.

***

Despite his reputation as group fuckup, he'd always felt protective of the other guys, so he'd always been the one to step in when they'd gotten into situations. When Joey started bringing a different groupie to the hotels every night in some desperate search for something he needed and couldn't find, Chris had staged a love-in, cajoling Joey into staying in with them and then maneuvering them all into a big happy pile on the bed. He'd started talking about all the things he loved about Joey; the other guys had followed his lead, and by the end of the night Joey was smiling, curled into Justin and Lance, tears long spent. When Justin had gotten aggressive with JC and Lance in the studio, shouting orders at them all in practice, Chris had hauled him to the dressing room by an ear, and had given him a nice hard shot of perspective for a solid half-hour. When JC had taken his perfectionism to a new level of obsessiveness and tension after the lawsuit, Chris had teased him and fed him tequila shots and made fun of him until he'd laughed his helpless giggle and relaxed and smiled again.

Somehow, though, Lance's drinking hadn't really managed to penetrate his comfortable little coccoon. It had gotten worse lately, he'd noticed detachedly. He could tell that everyone was a pretty worried about it. He just couldn't bring himself to get excited about it, even in the little intervention, when Joey was raging at Lance, and Justin was hiding in the corner, and Lance was looking pale and sick and miserable, and on the brink of furious tears. There was probably a reason for the drinking, he'd reasoned. Lance was bright. He knew how to take care of himself.

Somewhere inside, he had been shocked at himself. That part was pretty far away, though.

***

The ache in his hand, the head pain, the tremble in his stomach, drove him back to the pills finally. He'd gone almost a day without them, laughing with JC as he struggled to play along with music that Justin labeled, disgustedly, "nasty hick stuff, C, turn that DOWN!" JC was hitting one note in ten, which, considering the complexity of the music, was fairly impressive. Chris resolutely was NOT thinking about the fine edge of JC's cheekbones in the light, that full lower lip, the way JC's breath had felt on his skin. It was *JC*, for god's sake.

When JC's hand cramped, though, and he finally gave up, he'd thrown his arms around Chris and cuddled close, and whispered that it was the best present he'd ever gotten. Which Chris was willing to take with a healthy grain of salt, since JC had said the same thing when Joey had gotten him that autographed Sting album. But JC said it so sweetly, smiling, Chris couldn't help but feel warm all over.

When the lights in the bus went down, though, when JC was curled in his bunk, when Justin's Gameboy was finally silent and dark, Chris felt it coming back. Pain. Lots of it, running through him like blood, turning his thoughts dark and angry, making his hands shake and his teeth clench.

He had four refills left.

***

Chris hadn't been able to figure out the reason Johnny'd called him in for a meeting, but he'd felt that vague going-to-the-principal's-office dread anyway.

Johnny had sighed at him, made him sit down, and just watched him for a few moments. Chris sat still. He wasn't going to make the first move here.

"Chris..." He'd sighed again. All the sighing had been getting fairly annoying. "We've been getting letters."

"Letters?" Chris had hoped his confusion wasn't showing on his face.

"From the fans. They want to know if you're ok."

Still more confusion. "What? I mean, yeah. I'm fine. What the fuck?"

"You've been off. Chris, look at you." He'd looked down at himself involuntarily. All parts present, sir. "You're sitting STILL. Time was, you'd have been climbing out the window by now."

"Jesus Christ! Did Joey put you up to this?" He put his face in his hands. "Was I really such a manic freak that this is like, a sign of the apocalypse or something? I mean, y'all were about to send me away in a little white van and a little white jacket, don't think I didn't know. And now I'm NOT freaking out, and you're pissed about that too?" He'd stood up, glared. "Fuck this. Enough of this. Mind your own fucking business."

He'd let the door slam in Johnny's startled face on his way out. It hadn't been very satisfying.

***

He was spacing out on the couch in front of the TV when JC shoved his feet out of the way and sat. That night had been a great show, totally on, and JC was still sparkling a little with that on-stage shine he got. He resettled his feet in JC's lap and let himself drift. He was awfully tired.

C reached, picked up the mandolin, rested the round back on Chris's shins, and plucked a little at the strings. It...yeah, it was. "Gone." Choppy and hesitant, like any new song will be when you're just figuring it out. Chris smiled. JC looked beautiful in the flicker of passing street lights, head bent, lower lip between his teeth. All shadows and hollows and smooth delicate lines.

"Gone" ended. JC started "Shenandoah", and Chris sighed, and settled deeper into the couch. So pretty. Quiet and dark, and he was drifting, drifting...

JC's voice almost didn't make an impression, when he started speaking.

"Chris Chris Chris..." He was almost singing.

"Yeah, C?"

"Christopher Kirkpatrick, I am very worried about you." Still in that humming voice, and Chris was so tired...

"I'm ok."

"No, I don't think so. Your eyes aren't alive any more, and you don't play with us ever." He was still picking at the mandolin. "We miss our Chris. Miss Chris."

JC couldn't even have A Talk without being strange. Chris found himself smiling, against all reason.

"I'm ok, really, C. Just a little...out of it. It's better, though. Better than before."

"No. Before you were angry, all the time, and mean, and it was scary. But you were you, you were real. And sometimes we could still make you smile. Now you're just kind of a pretend Chris. Pod Chris. It's scarier than before." JC stopped his strumming, let the instrument lie still. "I don't like pretend Chris. I want him to leave."

Chris sighed, turned so he was lying on his side, looking out into the room, feet still tucked against JC.

"I don't like being angry." It was the first he'd spoken of it, and it came out surprisingly easily. Maybe because of the dark. Probably because of JC. "I didn't like the way I was, with you. You guys."

"You've always been angry. Maybe not so much. I mean, stuff. You know? Like, things, made you angry, and it was ok, because it was you. I'm not saying it right." JC's hands were flying, trying to make sense of his words, bring them out in order. Chris watched, as always, with a smile. "Like, you're funny and mean and you, and we never stopped, you know, understanding that. Like when I was all messed up about Bobbee, and I stopped talking and stuff and Joey had to make me eat? That was me. And with Dani, like, you just have to let yourself be, you know, you. Mad. Sad. Whatever."

"Wow, C, I actually got all that. Here. Hang on. Move that thing." He twisted around until he'd turned completely, and pillowed a cheek on JC's leg, one arm slung over his lap. JC's fingers rested in his hair, like a strange, delicate bird. He took a deep breath.

"It's..." He rested his mouth against JC's jeans, made his decision. "They gave me painkillers, you know? For my hand. And they worked, which was really good, because that shit was out of control painful, C, you don't even know. But they made me feel better. Calmer. I liked it. Like it. I'm careful, I'm not popping them or anything."

"Were you really that unhappy?" JC's voice was gentle, like his fingers. Chris huffed a little almost-laugh.

"JC, you have no idea."

JC sat still and quiet for a moment. Then he sighed, and shifted, until he was lying with Chris, tucked into the curve of his body, wrapped around him like another skin. Chris breathed.

Justin found them like that in the morning.

***

He'd made something of an effort, after the disastrous meeting with Johnny. He'd dropped to one pill a day instead of three, shrugging off the cravings. He'd quit smoking, after all, and had had a brief fling with coke, back in the day. Withdrawal was something he could handle. One was enough. One kept him from thinking about the fact that that fan in front of him was young enough to be his daughter, that Dani was probably sucking some guy's dick right now, that he was the short, strange, ugly one, that Lance was still drinking himself straight into rehab. That JC was the most beautiful and unobtainable thing he'd ever encountered in his life.

It had stopped being about the physical pain a long time ago.

***

Justin had been whining about missing Britney all day, and Chris was seriously about to smack him. So he wasn't too surprised when Joey picked Justin up over one shoulder, ignoring his kicking and shouts, and carried him onto the other bus, after the show. Lance followed them, grinning.

JC was standing in the middle of the lounge, looking slightly lost, the way he sometimes did. Chris smiled at him, too. It had been a pretty good day, after all, Justin notwithstanding. JC smiled back, seeming to snap back to reality.

"Chris. C'mere." He turned and walked back to the bunks. What the fuck? Chris followed, alive with curiosity and a bit of anticipation. He had the bus, and JC, to himself, for a whole night. Well, a whole five hours, but still. JC was practically dancing with excitement.

JC threw back the curtain on his bunk, and stood back proudly so Chris could see. There, next to his own mandolin, was another one. Slightly larger, and flatter, with a deep red finish that was so smooth Chris wanted to reach out and...wait.

"C...is that for me?"

JC nodded, beaming.

"Like, a present? JC...I don't play. You know that, right?" He was baffled. He'd never even picked up Justin's GUITAR.

JC cocked his head at him, his smile dimming. "Well...I thought. You know. You always listen to me play. And watch and stuff. And I play a lot when I'm feeling down or bad or something, it helps. And you got me the CD and everything, I thought. I mean. I could give you this, and then when I asked, you know, if you could stop taking the pills..." JC's hands were fluttering, his slender body moving anxiously, now, rocking a little. "Like, it would be something. For you to do. And maybe you wouldn't be mad at me."

Chris stared at him, and barked a short laugh. JC flinched.

"You were going to BRIBE me? With a fucking MANDOLIN? Jesus, JC." He shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair aimlessly. "Only you, man. Only you."

JC looked slightly more hopeful.

"Oh, don't, not with the puppy eyes...JC...ah, dammit." He sat down on the bunk, resigned. JC bounced once, happy again, and handed him the mandolin before sitting down. He stared down at it, in his hands. It was heavier than he thought it would be. He plucked a string, winced.

"It'll sound better when you know how to play. I mean, you've watched ME enough. It's really easy, you know, because it's got FRETS, and you don't have to use a bow or anything. Not like a violin, god, Tyler used to take violin lessons. Mom said it would give him a better ear for music, but I don't think it did, I think it just drove ME out of the house. It was the most horrible sound. But you'll be ok, you actually know music, I mean, I'll bet you'll be really good soon, and we can do duets!" He looked at Chris, smiling wide.

Chris stared at him again. JC was just the most...

"JC, I wasn't watching you to learn how to play the damn mandolin."

JC looked puzzled.

How was he supposed to tell JC? That watching him was better than painkillers. That being around him made the angry little voice in his mind settle down and behave, that recently, it was like JC breathed peace into him. Tell him that his hands made Chris shiver, that the line of his spine made Chris sweat. That he'd woken up from their night on the couch achingly hard and shaking with it. That when he was with JC, he didn't think of Dani at all, and it had nothing to do with drugs.

He gave a mental shrug. In for a penny...and it wasn't like JC was the type to hold it against him.

He reached out, rested his thumb on the gorgeous curve of JC's lower lip. Simple and direct was always best, with JC.

"I just like being with you." He waited.

JC's eyes went big and round. They were frozen like that for an endless second. Then, slowly, JC turned his cheek into the cup of Chris's hand.

"I like being with you, too." Whispered, and endlessly sweet.

"No pity, JC. Not like that." He made himself say it.

"I've never pitited you." JC looked confused again. "Why would I, when you're so strong?"

And Chris was not stupid. He knew, even as he leaned in and tasted JC's mouth for the first time, pepper and musk and sweet, that it wouldn't be so easy. He felt the eager lick of JC's tongue against his own, slim hands scrabbling at his shoulders, his shirt, the surprise in his mind that this was happening, that this was POSSIBLE, almost drowning out the pleasure. Vague thoughts of therapy, maybe, or a long vacation, drifted through his mind. He was still pretty fucked up. VERY fucked up. But JC was here. JC wouldn't let him go. JC loved him, and he was suddenly as sure of that as he was that the sun would rise, that Justin Timberlake would bitch, that up was up and down was down. JC wouldn't buy a mandolin for just anybody.

"Stop thinking," JC murmured into his mouth, and he smiled, rolled JC onto his back and kissed him down into the mattress. They knocked the mandolin onto the floor, and JC didn't even twitch, except to arch up into Chris's hands, hands on the sleek soft skin of JC's waist, his hip. Touching heaven.

[end]


End file.
